


bay three-five

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Slow Burn, did I say slow burn, if i get the confidence i may write smut for this, not yet though sorry, reader does not give a SHIT abt him yet so fluff is hard, there could be fluff.... maybe, there's a fight in ch1 but idk if that's gonna persist yet, violence?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28302573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Maybe things aren’t better everywhere, but since the war ended, they've been looking up for you. You have a good job doing what you love. Your life is almost never in danger, too, until a backstabbing bounty hunter holds a blaster to your head and you learn that maybe danger is a price you're willing to pay if it means seeing anything but sand.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You, Mando/reader, Mando/you, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Kudos: 4





	bay three-five

In retrospect, setting your price before seeing the ship was a bad move. Usually when a client says, “It’s in bad shape,” that means a few nasty cosmetic damages and a couple worn out or corroded elements; nothing that took more than a week with a couple droids helping.

Here, “It’s in bad shape,” means you think you could spend a month working on this ship and still be missing something. “Last legs,” now means it was practically falling apart in your hands as you try to assess the exterior damage.

“Maker, did you get in the middle of a battle between the Empire and the Resistance?” You joke to the pilot while doing your assessment. He’d barely said a word (if they _are_ a he), and your complete lack of experience with Mandalorians isn’t helping you navigate this conversation. Guess your joke didn’t land. 

“Not exactly,” is all he says. 

You turn back to the panel you had open, full of half-fried wires and out-of-date interfaces, before he could see you roll your eyes. _Hard-ass_.

It took nearly half an hour to go through everything he knew was wrong with the ship, plus the things you noticed along your way, and the Mandalorian seemed to be getting a little antsy. By the time you work your way back to the hull, six hundred credits didn’t seem at all fair.

“Look, man, I wish I could tell you this could easily get done in a couple days.” You look at the helmet, wondering where his eyes were under there. “I’m the only one in this bay right now, minus the droids, so if you want to leave her here a less than a week, you’re gonna need to be ready to find another mechanic wherever you land, and I mean immediately.” 

The emotionless helmet staring down at you doesn’t reveal anything, and you find yourself wishing it had eyebrows or something. If he hasn’t taken it off yet, in the sweltering sun, there’s probably a good, Mandalorian reason.

So you let it be.

“I need to be out of here as soon as I’m back. I doubt there are many technicians where I’m going.” His words are perfectly normal, but the low voice he speaks in, or at least the one that comes through the modulator, sends a shiver down your spine. “What can you get done?” 

You look over the ship again with a sigh. “Your fuel leak is the big one. I’ll get that done first, then work through the power system and the navigation, plus your thrusters and enviro filter. The hyperdrive isn’t doing its best, either.” You can’t really see it, but it sounds as if he’s about to speak behind his mask, and you quickly cut in, “I know the filter on your suit works probably fine, but that’s for you, not the little one. Who knows what trouble you two get into.” 

You make a motion to the little green creature, and the helmet swivels to follow. 

“I’ll have droids working on the major—”

“No droids.” His voice is firm, but the damage on what could be a beautiful, aging ship has an even firmer one.

“Sorry, babe, but six hundred won’t cover a quarter of the work if I don’t have droids. Either you get over it and trust me or find another team in the port to fix it.” (You’re bluffing. Hard. You and Peli have the fewest droids in the third section and you know exactly zero technicians who’d work without.) “You’re already parked here, I’ve gone over your problems, and I doubt anybody in Mos Eisley will take less than two thousand for the work you’re asking me to do.”

He doesn’t look like he’s budging. _Shit_. It isn’t like you’ve been getting an avalanche of work lately, and this was exactly the kind of project you were itching for. Plus, showing Peli your skills on a pre-Empire ship might get you that much closer to a raise.

“Listen. I don’t mean to assume, but I don’t think bounty hunting work is really the safest activity to bring a child along with. I’ll keep an eye on the little one if you let me use the droids,” you say, nodding at the little alien sitting on the ramp. The Mandalorian's gaze doesn’t follow yours this time.

“He goes where I go,” he says. 

“You were _this_ close to leaving him here!” You pinch two fingers so they almost touch and hold up your hand to him. 

He doesn’t say anything back, but you know it isn’t because he doesn’t have anything to counter with. With his bracer, he pushes your hand away from his face. The smooth beskar makes the hair on your arms and at the nape of your neck stand on end and you still have a residual feeling where it touched you when your arm falls back to your side, like it had been ice. You try to shake it off when he isn't looking.

You pass him to go squat down by the child. “You want to take this speck of a creature into the deserts of Tatooine to hunt down a criminal?” You ask. The little kid's wide, dark eyes blink back at you. “That’s abuse! What if he gets shot?”

The Mandalorian seems to be calculating, judging by the silence, so you hold out your arms to the kid to see if he wants to be held. Without a single pause, he starts to waddle toward your outstretched hands and you pick him up. He’s surprisingly dense. “Well, hello there!” 

The baby, who is greener than any flora on Tatooine that you can name, blinks up at you again. 

“I don’t know how you could possibly take him to capture somebody dangerous enough to warrant you hunting them down.” As you say it, you know you’re pushing it, and even though power is usually a bit fun, it feels a little nasty to force this guy to leave his kid behind so you can use your droids. 

_In all_ _fairness_ , you tell yourself, _it_ is _dangerous for somebody so little and powerless, and if you can’t give some of the work to the droids, you’ll have to send this guy and his adorable child off in a ship that may just fall apart._

“Fine,” comes Mando’s gravelly voice from behind you. This is obviously not a compromise he’s happy with. “But the droids only work on the outside. If they go in there, I’ll know.”

“Perfect! We’ll start work immediately.” You start to give the three DUMs orders, sending them to the places most likely to breach. They aren’t the most elegant of tools, much less droids in general, and you’ll probably have to spend a day working on the exterior, but they’re giving you all the more freedom to sink your teeth into the internal damage. And boy, oh, boy, is there internal damage. 

The Mandalorian leaves, returns an hour later with another hunter, and then leaves again not to come back, so you had scooped up the little creature and put him in a makeshift sling earlier to sit at your hip as you work on the ship’s million and one problems. Somehow, half the offending components are waterlogged and the other half look as if they haven’t seen coolant or lubricant in years. It looks as if mechanics over the years had just replaced anything they felt like on a whim. 

Minutes you spend working on the ship turn into hours and days with only brief breaks to sleep and eat and feed the kid. Mando hadn’t mentioned what he eats, but broth seems to do the trick. The little guy spends most of the time idly cooing and reaching out to hold your tools until he finally falls asleep, and it’s soon very clear how the cold, solitary Mandalorian had developed such an obvious soft spot for the tiny thing. You couldn’t have asked for a better companion. Plus— _insanely_ cute.

You’re coming up on three days, and no sign of the hunter. Halfway through the second day, you think you heard him come in as you were soldering up in one of the propellers, but it’s somebody else. 

“Peli!” You call down from your perch. 

“Hey, kid! What’s this?” 

“Some bounty hunter dropped it off a few days back. He’s only paying six hundred, and I’m watching his kid, so I’m not sure I like him very much, but, _stars_ , is it fun to work on something pre-Imperial.”

“Six hundred? What are we, a charity?” 

You shuffle backward in the tube, careful not to fall out, so you can poke your head out and look at your boss through the welding mask. “The kid is so cute, Peli, you have no clue. I’m gonna get the Mandalorian to give me some of his reward because we aren’t a daycare, but man! He’s in the ship.”

“If you say so,” Peli grumbles. “Oh! Hello there!” 

You smile to yourself and turn back to your work. Beneath the sounds of your tools, you can hear Peli fussing over the child. With her help, things will go more than twice as fast.

The next day, as you’re working on the navcom (which seems to hate you, as many of the older parts do), you write off the sound of somebody coming up the ramp. Could be Peli stepping a bit harder than usual, or the hunter could be back. Either way, some help would be more than useful, so you call, “Mind taking a look at the nav system? There’s something I’m not getting.” You sit back on your heels and wipe your hand off on the band around your forehead.

“I bet there is,” an unfamiliar voice says, and before you can turn your head an inch, you hear a blaster’s safety switch off and feel something metallic and circular press against your head.

Your heart leaps into your throat. “Enchanted to meet you too,” you say, trying to mask the fear spreading through your body.

“She’s got a mouth on her, huh? Now, where is the child?” The man demands, and you start to think maybe this _is_ a voice you’ve heard. 

“I don’t know,” you tell him, feigning confidence and trying desperately to place him. The city? Maybe he works nearby?

“Is that so?” The blaster digs through your hair and pushes against your scalp, almost sending your chin into your chest. You aren’t a gambler, but you’d put money on the bet that he can hear your heartbeat.

“Honestly, I haven’t seen a kid.” 

The tip of the barrel starts to move along your head until it’s under your chin and the man behind it is crouched down next to you. This is when you think you start to shiver, frozen in place. He forces your chin up with the blaster. “I don’t,”—the tip draws a line along your cheekbone—“believe you.” 

You take a deep breath and tense your muscles, ready to strike back.

“Don’t,” you hear Peli say, and your head snaps to look at the man. Your nose hits the blaster. You can only really tell because you start to smell blood. It’s the other bounty hunter the Mandalorian met up with, and in his other hand is a second blaster, reached around Peli’s head with the barrel pressed to her temple. You half expected the kid to be in her arms, but her hands are empty. 

“I’m not gonna do… anything.” You gently set your tools down and slowly raise your hands beside your head, keeping your eyes fixed on the man holding a blaster between them. “Where’s Mando?” 

“I’m asking the questions here, bitch,” he growls, grinding the blaster into your forehead. Peli flinches, and your eyes dart to her. Her jaw is clenched, and she very slowly nods toward the gun aimed at you. 

You fix your gaze on the bounty hunter to make sure his eyes stay on you, and watch out of your periphery as Peli discreetly mouths a countdown from three. Those seconds feel like years.

She reaches one, and, as you had practiced when you first started working under her, both of your hands shoot up; one to grab the base of the gun and the other to force the barrel toward the ceiling. Both blasters fire rounds into the air above you, putting holes in the ceiling, before you and Peli rip them from his hands. You scramble backwards, away from him, and aim the blaster at his chest. 

The universe, as always, has other plans. The child, who you knew was last sitting over with the droids by the door into the complex, begins to call out _right_ next to the ramp. You can even hear it as it makes its way toward you, into the ship and the bounty hunter’s line of sight. You, Peli, and the hunter stare each other down before the scramble begins. 

Peli reaches to the wall to hoist herself up, the hunter shoots his arm out to grab his blaster back from her, and you jump to your feet, blaster trained on the hunter, to run to the child and get him out of here. In a flurry of movement, the hunter grabs Peli’s arm and pushes her back down, making for the blaster, so your boot meets his knee and your blaster, his neck. 

“Don’t move,” you snap. “Peli.” She quickly rises and runs to the child. “Now tell me,” you say, reaching your free hand out and jerking his face toward you, “where is the Mandalorian?”

“You a bounty hunter, little girl?” He sneers. “Figured somebody else would be after him. After that armor. After the price on his head.” 

“What are you talking about? He’s a hunter, he said he was with the Guild.” You hold his head against the wall, pressing his skull into the cold metal, if only to steady your shaking hand.

“The kid—” he starts to speak, but his words are replaced with gagging. His hands shoot to his neck and he stares, bug eyed, at you as his mouth falls open and strangled sounds emerge from it. 

“What’s going on?” You ask, frantically looking him up and down.

“I think it’s him,” says Peli, who’s standing in the doorway, holding the kid, whose eyes are fluttering closed and whose little three fingered hand is outstretched to you and the hunter. 

“Stop. Stop. Stop!” You call to the creature as you look between him and the hunter, and as soon as his hand drops, the hunter gasps, sputtering.

“What the fuck is that thing?” The hunter says between hacking coughs. 

“Not your concern.” The dark, modulated voice of the Mandalorian hangs heavy in the air of the ship. You didn’t even hear him board.

“You better have compensation, mister,” is what immediately crosses Peli’s lips. 

“She’s right, Mando,” you call over to him. “This is more than we bargained for.” 

“I didn’t think he’d betray me,” he says simply, crossing the cabin and hoisting the other hunter up by his collar with one hand. In a few swift steps, he’s all the way over to the carbonite chamber and the bounty hunter is encased within seconds. With a sigh, you drop the blaster and sag against the wall. It feels like everything rushes from your head.

“This is my boss, Peli,” you tell him automatically as he turns on her, clearly eager to take the child from this stranger’s arms. “She came back from a job a few towns over yesterday.”

“Pleasure,” he grumbles as he grabs the kid and puts him in a little closet compartment filled with blankets, not paying you any mind. 

“My apprentice here told me you’re only giving us six hundred. I think circumstances make that a bit low,” Peli says.

“Is the ship ready?” He asks.

“It will fly. Can’t say it’ll survive a shootout,” you say, glancing towards Peli. “You do have the money, right?” Talking about money feels a little silly but you’re at least getting your sea legs back.

He finally turns toward you. “Yeah. Here.” He hands a cartridge of credits to you, somewhere near a thousand.

“Better than six hundred,” you mutter. Peli catches it, when you throw it to her, and makes her way out of the ship. It’s hard to tell, as everything is with him, but you could swear he’s just pretending he didn’t hear you.

“Apprentice?” He asks, after a few moments of silence.

“I started working under her a couple years back, right after the Empire fell. She doesn’t want to admit I’m getting to be as good as she is.”

“How much longer do you plan to live on Tatooine?”

“Who said I was leaving?” 

“Everything about you.”

You scoff. It’s hard to gauge if you want less or more to see his expression as time goes on. Now, it might be nice to know he wasn’t holding back laughter at your quizzical brow, but it’s not that much worse than talking to a droid or a trooper or anyone who needs a helmet. They all have cues and body language. You just don’t know his.

“Nobody young stays long on Tatooine, not if they can help it.”

“Well I’m not Luke Skywalker. I _can’t_ help it,” you say, and make it so he can’t read your face by grabbing a step stool and inspecting the holes blasted into the ceiling. Nothing important should have been hit, but it’s worth it to—

“Who’s Luke Skywalker?”

You let out a snort, and look down give him a grin. But he doesn’t look like he just made a joke, he looks like he just asked a question. “Are you serious?”

“Always.” He just stands there, looking up (well, sort of. You’re only a bit taller than him on the stool) at you. 

“I will admit, I might be a bit of a hypocrite, because I know next to nothing about Mandalorians, but have you seriously never heard of Luke Skywalker?”

“I’ve been busy.”

Flabbergasted, you stare at him. The man toppled the _Empire_ not five years ago. He was all anybody could talk about in Mos Eisley for a few weeks. “Well, I’ll put it this way. _He_ got off Tatooine.”

It was silent again, but just as you look back to what you were doing, he speaks again. “I could use a crew member of your ability.”

_What did you just say to me?_

“I asked if you want to work for me. Keep the _Crest_ in good condition, and it would be best if somebody kept an eye on the kid. I can pay you.”

Oh. You said that aloud. 

You’ve met a lot of weird people. Human or otherwise, every kind of character comes through the ports of Mos Eisley. You should be ready to be surprised. 

Still, in front of you stands a man who is bewildering you in every sense of the word. His ship was beyond damaged, he didn’t say how, he barely said anything at all because he’s a _Mandalorian_ , he has a weird green fox baby which you’re starting to think he stole (kidnapped?), he’s never heard of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and now he wants you to _join his crew_ and _take care of the Force_ _child_. 

“I don’t know how kindly Peli will take to you poaching her favorite apprentice,” you joke nervously, feeling very put on the spot. Yes, it’s everything you ever wanted, but life on Tatooine has just started to not suck and abandoning Peli is the last thing you want to do.

“She has others?”

Of course. No sense of humor. “No, I mean I’m her favorite because I’m the only one. I guess that also makes me her least favorite, which is maybe a more deserving title.”

And the silence is back.

“I understand if you want to stay.” His voice is the same as before in all the ways that don’t matter, and softer in all the ways that do.

“Exactly! I have a reliable, safe job that pays well enough, I meet people from all over the galaxy, I’ve got a few friends, I’m not risking my neck for money.” A beat. “Usually.”

“Alright.” He turns to climb into the cockpit, glancing at the kid before looking once more at you. “I’ll see you again.” His hand is just then gripping a high rung on the ladder when you interrupt his ascent.

“I didn’t... That wasn’t a no,” you say, and it comes out smaller and feebler than you meant it to. You meant it to be confident and strong, but it was almost a whisper. He stops what he’s doing but doesn’t turn his head. 

“I just need to think about it. I have a life here, but you’re right. Nobody stays on Tatooine if they can help it. I’d be happy to work for you, I just- I don’t- I’m not sure if I’d be happier than if I was working here. If you still… want me, I’ll have an answer by the time you’ve finished your next job. I w- I won’t be _waiting_ , per se, I—” You stop yourself and take a deep breath because you are talking much too fast to seem reasonable or professional or interesting or worthy. “I’ll be here, but don’t worry about making me wait. If you still want me to come with you, I’ll have an answer. If you don’t, I won’t cry about you not showing.” 

You’re using altogether too many words to communicate with such a concise man and with every extra syllable you add, it feels like he’s that much less likely to come back for you, that much closer to just saying, “No, this was a one-time offer. Sorry,” and taking his kid and his mysteries to never be seen again. 

By the time six seconds pass, you’re convinced you’d ruined your chances of ever seeing naturally formed ice or anything at all that isn’t present on the sandy rock of Tatooine.

The seventh second brings a miracle. “Okay,” he says. Just… “okay.” He then turns back and climbs into the cockpit. You’re frozen in place. It didn’t sound dismissive—he definitely just agreed. Right? Or was he just trying to get you off his ship? Oh. Oops. You’re not off his ship. 

You grab your tools, the ones you dropped when you were rudely interrupted, and call up a couple of the things you’d tweaked through the open trapdoor of the cockpit. He doesn’t thank you. He doesn’t say anything more to you at all, and then all of a sudden you’re standing next to Peli, watching the _Razor Crest_ leave the atmosphere. 

You take the clean part of your forehead band and hold below your nose to get the blood you feel hitting your lip.

“You were right, that was a cute kid. Hope he doesn’t turn out to push things like his dad,” Peli remarks gruffly.

“I don’t know if he’s all bad. He offered me a job,” you say before considering what the fuck that means.

“He did?” She sounds incredulous. 

“Well, I did fix his ship, and the green thing really liked me. What, you don’t think he’d want all of this”—you make a sweeping motion down your body with one hand—“working for him in close quarters?” Peli snorts.

“He just didn’t seem like a poacher. Well, suits him. You’re here, so you said no.” She seems proud of herself, running such a tight ship that you wouldn’t leave her to see the universe. 

It stings more than you thought it would to say, “Actually…”

**Author's Note:**

> i am admittedly not the most well versed in star wars terminology or timelines, but those aren’t the errors i really care about (i don’t have a beta reader so it's mostly the grammar and tense issues.) 
> 
> hope you enjoyed! ch2 in the works :)
> 
> aurea xox


End file.
